Moving In: Moving In Series Book 1

166 pages

Chapter 1: The New House

Brian and Jenny stood on the porch of their new house and gazed at the stark New England farmland stretching out around them. The sun cast its last bit of light upon the yellowed grass, and a cold wind blew down from the north. There was a good chance of snow later in the evening. It would be the first of the season, the first in their new home, and Brian wasn’t looking forward to it.

For all of his forty years Brian had lived in New Hampshire. Jenny, only three years younger, was a New Hampshire native too. But while Brian hated winter, Jenny had always enjoyed it. Winter was only part of why Brian was anxious though. The rest of his anxiety had been a result of living in the city, the stress of his job. That, and the heart attack. All of it had forced the move out to the country. Brian had downsized his workload and was going to run his clients’ security needs from a home office; once he had unpacked. But it didn’t make him happy to be out of the city.

“What do you think?” Jenny asked, sliding her arm through his.

“About what?”

She looked up at him. “About this, all of this.”

Brian smiled. “It’s pretty. It’s just strange to be out of the city.”

“Manchester is a dive,” Jenny said. “I swear, it’s one step up from Lowell.”

Brian didn’t say anything.

“Come on, it’s not like we moved out of Boston,” she said after a minute.

“I know,” Brian sighed. “I know. Anyway, what’s on the agenda for tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” she said, pulling her phone out of her jacket pocket, “let’s see. Well, we have the plumber coming over at ten to give us an estimate on reworking the upstairs bath, and then we have a technician from J. Lawrence Hall coming in to make sure everything’s good with the furnace.”

“Is that it?” Brian asked.

“For house stuff, yeah,” she answered.

“Good.”

“What about work?”

“Not much,” Brian answered. “I’m going to make sure the booster works for the Wi-Fi. All of the clients know they can reach me on the cell if necessary, and I’ll get over to a secure facility to check on their issues.”

“No physical checks this week?”

Brian shook his head. “Next week those will start back up.”

“Good.”

They stood for a few more minutes on the porch, watching the sun finish its descent behind the western horizon, and then Brian stretched. “Ready to go inside?”

“Yeah.”

Jenny led the way back into the house, Brian closing and locking the door behind them. He shrugged off his coat and hung it up in the hall closet that smelled decidedly like too many mothballs. Jenny did the same, except her nose didn’t wrinkle at the smell the way his did.

Brian glanced around at the moving boxes stacked everywhere and tried not to think about the unpacking that lay ahead of them. He started to walk towards the kitchen and then stopped. “Babe,” he said.

“Yeah?” Jenny asked, looking over her shoulder as she was closing the closet door.

“Did you go in the basement?”

“No,” she said. “Why?”

“The basement door’s open.”

The heavy door, which Brian had closed earlier in the day, was open. Only an inch or two, but it was open.

He walked over, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. The house was warm enough, but by the door to the basement, it was cold, exceptionally cold, as if someone had left open the door to a walk-in freezer.

Even the handle was cold to the touch.

Brian closed the door and then gave the handle a gentle tug.

It didn’t even rattle in the frame.

He pulled harder, and still there was only a little movement.

Beneath the old cut-glass handle was a keyhole, and Brian wondered if they had the key for that particular lock.

“Do you think it opened on its own?” Jenny asked, walking over to stand beside him.

“Maybe,” Brian said. “Do you have that ring of keys that was left with the house?”

“It’s in the kitchen. I’ll go grab it.”

Jenny left, and a minute later she called out, “Brian, did you move them off of the table?”

“I never even touched them,” he called back.

After a minute, she came back, shaking her head. “I must have put them someplace else.”

“Okay,” Brian said, looking at the door again. “At least we have the house keys.”

“Exactly. Do you want to get a fire going, and I’ll get us some wine?”

Brian looked at Jenny and smiled. “Damn right, I do.”

Jenny laughed and left the room to get the wine while Brian walked into the parlor, wondering where the keys might be.

Chapter 2: Danny Collier’s Hunting Trip

Danny was in the woods well after sunset. If a Fish and Game Conservation Officer caught him, he knew he would be royally screwed. But, from what he had heard at the Nashua Fish and Game Club, the officers had swept through Mont Vernon last week. Sure, they could change up their rhythm, but there had been a rumor of poaching in Greenfield. Danny was sure the officers would be working that area over the week.

He stepped along the path, using night-vision goggles to follow the slim game trail. Another hundred yards or so, and he’d find his trail camera and figure out if anything was coming around the salt lick he’d put out the week before. Danny paused, shifted his deer rifle from his left shoulder to his right, and debated whether or not to stop and take a leak.

Definitely shouldn’t have had those beers at Henry’s, Danny thought.

Deciding he’d go later, and not anywhere the deer might catch wind of it, Danny continued on.

A few minutes passed, and he came to the small clearing where he had set up his salt lick. His trail camera was still attached to the young elm tree he’d chosen, and Danny grinned. He opened the camera, pulled the SD card, and then dug his small digital camera out of the front pocket of his hunting jacket. Even with his gloves on, Danny managed to slide the SD card into the camera. A moment later, he flipped his goggles up and was accessing images from the trail.

Most of the initial stills were just of a raccoon passing by, but then he caught one of a good sized doe. After that, he had a pair of does, and finally a buck with a six-point rack. He checked the time-stamps on the pictures and noticed they had all been taken between six and seven PM.

It’s only quarter to six now, Danny thought with a grin. He scanned through a couple more pictures of the wandering raccoon, one of a border collie, and then he stopped, his breath catching in his throat.

The picture showed a man. An old man with a large mustache and a broad-brimmed hat. He wore an old three-quarter length jacket and a pair of jeans with old boots, and he was staring at the deer lick.

But Danny could see through him.

The outline of the man was barely visible, and through the man, Danny could see the other side of the clearing and the distant dark shape of the old Kenyon house on the crest of a slight hill.

What the hell? Danny thought, finally exhaling. He flipped through the next few pictures, but saw nothing else. Shaking his head, he turned his camera off, put his goggles back down, and returned the SD card to the trail camera.

It was then he noticed there were lights on in the Kenyon house, which was another thousand yards across open ground. Danny remembered there had been talk down at Henry’s that somebody had bought the place.

Turned out it was true.

More luck to them, Danny thought.

With a grunt, Danny walked around the edge of the glade, staying in the tree line until it cut away sharply to the right. His hide was there, and he settled down in it, getting his rifle set and making sure the safety was off. For a moment, he wondered if the new owners of the Kenyon house would be upset about him hunting on their property, and then he chuckled. He’d have a kill field dressed and ready to go long before anyone could get out to him.

Getting comfortable, he waited, neither moving nor making any sort of sound. The slight pressure of beer on his bladder vanished as he focused on the salt lick.

Minutes slid by, and Danny got in the hunting zone, perfectly happy to be doing nothing. He breathed easily, in through his nose and out through his mouth. He waited, watching.

Soon he heard a soft crunch, the faintest of sounds. Silence followed, and then a few minutes later, the deer appeared. It was a doe, and while Danny would have liked the six pointer that had shown up before, he was happy with the animal in front of him.

Lifting his goggles, Danny took a deep breath and slowly lowered his face to the stock of his rifle, the wood cold against his cheek. He looked through the night scope on the rifle. The built in light suppressor in the optics would ensure that the light of the shot wouldn’t blind him. Danny watched the doe amble cautiously up to the salt and start licking it.

Smiling, he took careful aim at the shoulder of the animal, at the heart, and slowly squeezed the trigger.

The recoil on the rifle was slight, the sound brutal in the stillness of the night. The doe leaped away in fright, managed a single long step, and fell to her side.

The shot was clean.

The doe was dead.

Danny dropped his goggles into place, picked up the hot brass shell casing from the ground, slipped it into an outer pocket, and quickly collapsed the hide. He stuffed it into his shoulder bag and hurried back to the trail camera, undoing the Velcro strap and sliding the entire assembly into a side pocket on his pants. Shouldering his rifle, Danny jogged out to the doe. He dropped down to his knees, slipped his gutting knife out of its sheath on his belt, and got to work.

A few minutes into it, Danny had the doe open and the offal tossed to one side, the smell of blood hot and stinking of iron in his nose.

“Iron,” a voice whispered.

Danny stiffened and looked around.

He couldn’t see anything.

Suddenly uncomfortable, Danny turned back to the doe and started working on the rest of the --

“Salt,” the same voice whispered.

Danny got up to his feet, took a couple of steps and looking around, he turned sharply and slipped in the doe’s innards.

“Hell’s bells!” Danny swore, dropping the knife so he wouldn’t stab himself. He hit his head and knocked the goggles off into the doe’s stomach.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he groaned, already feeling the blood seeping into his pants.

“Iron and salt,” the voice whispered.

Danny scrambled to his feet, slipping again in the bloody grass before he was able to stand. Twisting around, he found the speaker.

It was the old man from the picture on the trail camera, but he was still just as see through.

Danny felt a chill sweep over him as the old man looked at him with a pair of tired, hazel eyes.

“Iron and salt,” the old man said once more. “Iron and salt.”

Something unbearably cold wrapped around Danny’s heart, squeezing it mercilessly. Danny collapsed to the ground, falling onto his left side. Unable to move, unable to breathe, he heard the old man again.

“Iron and salt.”

Danny’s vision slowly collapsed, the old man’s face the last thing he saw.

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